Fennel and Dill - Similarities and Differences

Dill and fennel look very similar with their feathery fronds, and this peaked my curiosity.  Do they share any other common traits?  It turns out they do!  They are both valued for their medicinal and flavorful properties, they were cultivated by English colonists here in Virginia, they are both members of the carrot family, they both have yellow flowers loved by pollinators, and they both fall prey to swallowtail butterfly larvae.  The two plants are different in many ways, however.  First, fennel is a perennial, which means it dies back in winter and grows back from the root in the springtime.  Dill, on the other hand, is an annual.  Once it dies, more seeds must be sown for it to grow back.  Chefs use dill leaves to flavor foods like salmon, pickles, and cucumber salad.  The entire fennel stalk is used in cooking, especially the base.  Fennel is especially yummy in fresh salad, and has a strong licorice taste.  Finally, fennel grows a bit taller than dill - up to six feet!  Dill typically grows three to five feet tall.  I found the information on dill and fennel at the following web link: http://herb-lady.hubpages.com/hub/Herb-Series--Dill-And-Fennel .

 

Here is an Epicurious link to cucumber dill salad: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Cucumber-Dill-Salad-51238020

 

Here is an Epicurious link to chickpea, fennel and citrus salad.  The recipe calls for grapefruit, but I'd substitute oranges or blood oranges:

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chickpea-Fennel-and-Citrus-Salad-51147440

 

The fennel is already taller than the dill, but six feet tall is hard to imagine at this early stage!

Here is a dill plant.  You can see how the leaves are similar to fennel.

 



Week One

This is one of our three sisters gardens (We have two!).  As you can see, only half has been planted.  Mrs. Diaz planted the rest with sunflowers to create a Vincent Van Gogh garden.  Everywhere you see a rock, a sunflower has been planted.  How long will it take for the flowers to grow?

This is our colonial kitchen garden.  The foreground includes two different types of tomato plants.  The tomatoes would not have been planted in a colonial kitchen garden.  Most colonial gardens had old world plants brought over from Europe.  The tomato is native to the New World.

This is a marigold/veggie/herb garden.  It's hard to decide what makes this garden stand out more, the bright colors or the fragrant herbs.

The Peter Rabbit garden is teeming with veggies, flowers and herbs.  Mrs. Diaz is doing some repairs on the scarecrow.  Hopefully he'll be back in business soon!  What we really need is something to scare the deer away.

Finally, here we have the pollinator garden.  The bee balm and marigolds have bloomed.  The bee balm came all the way from Pennsylvania.  Ms. Fenton brought it from her parents' yard.  It seemed a bit shy at first, but now it seems quite used to our southern ways.  Thanks Ms. Fenton!  We'd have more blooms in the pollinator garden if the deer hadn't raided it twice already!  They ate sunflowers and zinnias.  Mrs. Diaz planted more sunflowers to fill in the empty spaces.